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---
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stage: Create
group: Ecosystem
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info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
---
# Interactive API documentation
Introduces the interactive documentation tool for the GitLab API.
## About the OpenAPI specification
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The [OpenAPI specification ](https://swagger.io/specification/ ) (formerly called Swagger) defines a
standard, language-agnostic interface to RESTful APIs. OpenAPI definition files are written in the
YAML format, which is automatically rendered by the GitLab browser into a more human-readable interface.
For general information about the GitLab APIs, see [API Docs ](../README.md ).
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## Overview
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<!--
The following link is absolute rather than relative because it needs to be viewed through the GitLab
Open API file viewer: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/repository/index.html#openapi-viewer.
-->
The [interactive API documentation tool ](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/doc/api/openapi/openapi.yaml )
allows API testing directly on the GitLab.com website. Only a few of the available endpoints are
documented with the OpenAPI spec, but the current list demonstrates the functionality of the tool.
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## Endpoint parameters
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When you expand an endpoint listing, you see a description, input parameters (if required),
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and example server responses. Some parameters include a default or a list of allowed values.
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## Starting an interactive session
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A [Personal access token ](../../user/profile/personal_access_tokens.md ) (PAT) is one way to
start an interactive session. To do this, select **Authorize** from the main page, and a
dialog box prompts you to enter your PAT, which is valid for the current web session.
To test the endpoint, first select **Try it out** on the endpoint definition page. Input the parameters
as required, then select **Execute** . In the following example, we executed a request for the `version`
endpoint (no parameters required). The tool shows the `curl` command and URL of the request, followed
by the server responses that are returned. You can create new responses by editing the relevant parameters
and then select **Execute** once again.
